Verbatim
by Om0cha
Summary: Only he could write history, turn the clockwork and pull the strings.


**Thank you** **reign of tears**, for finishing Hold Me Back and bequeathing me with one of the most lovely bittersweet stories that I have ever had the pleasure to read. I wrote this immediately after finishing, wanting to somehow get out a bit of what I felt. It seems that unfortunately I haven't reached it, despite wanting this to be a one shot.

I'm turning into a horrible writer that starts stories and then doesn't update for yonks :(

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto, not om0cha.

**Pairings:** SasuNaru, whiffs of ItaNaru. Might just be whiffs of both.

* * *

**-Verbatim-**

A prologue

By Om0cha

Coincidence had no part to play when Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha were assigned to the same team.

Sakura was but cotton lining, the soft buffer that prevented the council from crying in outrage and tearing Team 7 apart before it even had a chance. She would never know that her greatest achievement had been clocked before she had even become a genin.

The council said nothing in the end—

_-in the beginning._

It was a team brought together by chance.

It was a plot brought together by men.

It was set into motion by single, unseen shadow, flitting around the clockwork and messing with their minds.

Naruto was filled with memories of a dark haired boy sitting on a dock over a lake. The boy would look at him sometimes and Naruto would tear his eyes away before scampering off, despite the desire to talk to him.

"_My_

_name_

_is_

…

"

"Who are you?"

Naruto, wide eyed and dishevelled –sleep had resisted and fought back with nightmares – sat in the cocoon of messed up, thin blankets in the corner of his room. He scrabbled with a high pitched whine beneath his flat pillow for the single kunai that he had managed to find, lost in the training grounds.

A clean, unused weapon.

A dark, large something was perched upon his window sill, so still and ominous that Naruto choked back his fear and impulse to cry out. It was a predator. It would become startled. It would attack.

It would hurt him with that used katana strapped to its formless back.

Whatever he had been expecting vanished along with all other thought then because the predator, in what he believed to be a lunge, moved forwards. Naruto shrieked and then the body dropped to his wooden floor with a heavy and wet thud.

No words were uttered, not a whimper of pain, but with its fall Naruto saw the rivulets of blood that trickled over the ledge of his white window-sill.

The predator was suddenly the defenceless rabbit.

"Are you hurt?"

He leaned forward concernedly. He crawled towards the end of his bed, kunai left glinting and forgotten behind him.

A hand shot up and gripped his mattress so suddenly that he backpedalled with a gasp, falling on his behind with scarcely a thought except that the hand, now lit by the lamplight outside, was shining red. The injured shinobi –because Naruto would recognise that brilliant white mask on the ground anywhere – pulled himself up and eyes, more scarlet than the blood, gazed sharply at him.

"Boy." The voice was like liquid silk, red running deep into his sheets, so deep and powerful that despite being murmured, it was loud in his dingy room.

"Do you…have something to treat wounds?"

Said hesitantly, because why would a young boy have such a thing? Why would a young boy know anything, other than the gentle, healing touch of a mother?

"I do."

"Get them for me."

Naruto did.

Because that voice was loud, and filled his mind.

"INCOMING!"

A shout rolled down the street. All heads turned his way. He grinned and raised his foot. Pulling back and squinting at his goal, he kicked the lumpy bag at his feet.

He let the humongous paint ball rip above their heads, colours exploding all over that corner of Konoha. Bright green, yellow, blue, purple and of course, orange.

No red.

"Eugh!"

"Damn brat!"

"Someone stop him!"

"Get back here!"

_Not loud enough. Not loud enough or red enough or dark enough and so I will never, ever listen._

"Oomf!"

With twin cries and thuds Naruto and the unfortunate boy that he had run headlong into went down to the dusty ground. Naruto winced, holding a hand to his head, then stared down into the black – _dark_ – eyes blinking reproachfully up at his. Recognising the other and questioning the chances, he swallowed, moving his hands to brace himself on the ground on either side.

He opened his mouth. His heart thudded because this was it, he could finally speak to the other boy.

_Everything, all waiting and time has come to –_

"Sa -"

"There he is!"

Naruto sat bolt upright, not noticing how the boy tangled beneath him flinched and glared at the sudden movement across his navel. A look over his shoulder showed an unruly mob racing down the narrow street and with a gulp, Naruto gave the raven haired boy beneath him one last wistful glance before scrambling off and getting out of there.

"Uchiha-san, are you alright?" he heard someone ask concernedly behind him.

He ran.

"Are you alright?"

Naruto was sitting on the wooden floorboards this time. The wounded rabbit had come back and was even calmly letting him clumsily wrap bandages around its bleeding arm. Strips of dirty bandages from the last time were littering the floor everywhere, the staining blood no longer pretty red but burgundy-black.

"This is nothing," his visitor (visitor- someone who _wanted _to be there) said when the tail was tucked carefully into another layer and secured with a pin.

Muscles, powerful and developed on a slender frame, flexed as their owner lifted his arm and examined the bandaging.

"Not bad," he commented. Red eyes examined Naruto curiously and the blonde saw _porcelain_.

"Do you do this often?"

And something sounded so wrong. Whether it was accusing him of being the demon child that they all loved to hurt, or of letting in dirty strays whenever they wanted and mending them in a desperate plea for attention, Naruto vehemently denied, "No."

If the other noticed he didn't show it.

"How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Why are you living alone?"

That question flared hope in a messy, explosive trail through Naruto's veins.

"You don't know who I am?" he asked carefully.

"Should I?"

"…I don't know. I've just always lived alone. It's been like this for as long as I can remember."

"That's no good." Naruto could see the porcelain fold and frown.

"What's your name?" he asked the older man. The rabbit never did tell him the last time.

"What's yours?" was shot right back at him, without a penchant of defensiveness.

"Naruto Uzumaki," he mumbled, then when the other didn't recoil in disgust, he took encouragement and straightened. "Remember that name! I'm going to be a great ninja one day!"

"Is that so?" Amusement.

Naruto scowled. "Just you wait. I'll become an ANBU too. And _I_ won't get injured."

His visitor chuckled. A hand reached out and ruffled his blonde hair and in shock at the fact that someone would willingly touch him in a way that wasn't out to cause pain, Naruto sat as stiff as a statue.

"Let's make a bet. I'll tell you my name when you become that great ninja."

"That's cheating," Naruto complained. "I already told you my name."

"Not up for it? I guess I could tell you now then…"

"No." Naruto pursed his lips.

"Hmm?"

He stared glassily at the window and something fell into place.

Twinkling stars, there but dead before he was. Illusionary.

Dead but still there and he had time and life to use a promise (wish) on a falling star.

"Tell me then. Not now. I'll do it."

Red eyes were staring at him from the reflection in the glass. Naruto felt his eyelids drooping and vaguely felt sheets being pulled over him. Hazily, he wondered why he was still awake.

"I'm going to become Hokage one day!"

It had struck him that morning.

Came out of nowhere actually, and embedded itself into his mind while he was brushing his teeth over the basin, forcing him to pause and frown with a mouthful of mint-flavoured foam. He would become the greatest ninja so that everyone would have no choice but to acknowledge him.

"That's a big goal," someone jeered from beside him.

Naruto huffed. His hand shot sharply into the air, so fast that it startled Ayame as she set down another bowl in front of a customer 2 seats down (because the seat beside him was always empty).

"Another bowl!"

"_I_

_am_

…

_of_

_the _

_leaf."_

Naruto's ears pricked and his sandals grated across the stones as he brought his swing to a stop. He glared at the three men that were standing next to the slide but didn't do anything else. He could see their weapon pouches.

"It's the demon brat."

One of them stumbled towards him. With him came the whiff of alcohol and Naruto realised that he was in trouble. He made to run.

But the predator always responds to movement.

He cried out as a shuriken grazed his elbow, digging deep into the earth in front of him. Another two embedded into his back and he couldn't believe that it could hurt this much. More shuriken tore at him and he wondered, didn't they need them for enemies?

Ninja needed to stand pain. Ninja needed to endure. Ninja needed to be emotionless feel no pain know only the mission forget them remember what you need to –

There were thuds behind him.

Porcelain, wrapped in ANBU black, leaned over him, and lifted his skinny body into its arms. He looked up into red eyes, sure that his own were unfocused beneath his goggles. So pathetically affected by the biting pain.

_-protect. _

"Who are you?" he whispered.

The person looked down and Naruto was met with red swirls across porcelain. Strange because he was _sure _that this person's skin was also porcelain underneath, but how he was so sure, he didn't know.

The animal on the mask looked like a weasel.

"Boy. You've forgotten our bet already."

"What bet?" he asked weakly. Blood ran down the length of his body. He couldn't comprehend what this supposed bet was.

"I suppose I can't blame you."

_The world was twisted. The moon was bleeding. _

_The streets were awash with blood and corpses._

_But for him, he'd erase them all_.

Naruto really wanted to talk to him.

He stood at the top of the grassy hill. _He_ sat on the wooden dock, like always.

What was different was the anger. Naruto could feel it, emanating from the raven haired boy in an undiscerning way. If he got too close, he was sure to get burnt by it. No more Naruto Uzumaki. No more Hokage.

Even _he_ must have felt it was too much (too much pain, too much hatred and burning), because before Naruto could take even one step off the path and onto the grass –despite the flame— the other had stood and leapt into the water. The anger was smothered, but not put out. Naruto could see the shadow of the boy in the water, spending a long time in there (out of reach). Just as Naruto started wondering whether he would drown and die before the fire went out—

-_the stars turned off—_

-dark hair shaped back into spikes as the –_crazy_— boy broke the surface and swam to shore, the sleek movement as he crawled out reminding Naruto of a cat. The cat paused midway to standing up, and lifting his head, meeting Naruto straight in the eyes.

Something angry and red flashed in those eyes before a sneer worked its way across a porcelain face. The cat stalked away, battle scarred but proud to be an Uchiha.

_Protect._

He often had strange dreams. Outlandish, ridiculous, ramen-is-my-best-friend type dreams. Very rarely were they comforting.

"_You will become Hokage one day."_

Something had warmed him last night, a whisper across his ear that brought with it the smell of pine and blood that had never quite washed out of the cotton and armour (and for some reason, the sheets at the end of his bed).

It had warmed him while the Uchiha district was slashed to pieces and unvoiced screams.

"_Sasuke is the last remaining Uchiha. We must place him with Naruto, Kakashi."_

"Usuratonkachi."

"Fucking _bastard_!"

"Naruto you idiot!"

"Mah, mah, calm down my dear little students."

There was a room with blood stains on the window and on the bed, browning the floorboards and tainting the air. There was a district with blood washed streets. All was as it should be.

Unchanged until a photo frame was added to the bedside drawers.

"_Do you have someone precious?"_

"Sasuke. SASUKE!"

Such beautiful porcelain, with red running in rivulets. All dark and bloody and

_-safe._

_The rabbit will forsake its place on the Zodiac. The cat will be accepted._

_To be continued._


End file.
